Holovid
by DragonRidingSorceress
Summary: Every news station in the galaxy was screaming about General Grievous' attack on Coruscant, the kidnap of the Chancellor, the Jedi's brave rescue, or the spectacular crash of the Invisible Hand onto Coruscanti streets. Every news station, but one.
1. Holovid

_**Holovid**_

Every news station in the galaxy was screaming about General Grievous' attack on Coruscant, the kidnap of the Chancellor, the Jedi's brave rescue, or the spectacular crash of the Invisible Hand onto Coruscanti streets.

Every news station but one.

In a tiny, insignificant gossip channel's camera room, an announcer droid spoke over unique footage.

"Skywalker Senator Scandal! Jedi Hero-With-No-Fear Anakin Skywalker has been caught by our cameras in one shockingly compromising position with Senator Padme Amidala of the Outer Rim.

For anyone wondering at home, no, this is not a standard human greeting! The long embrace and open-mouthed kiss you see here are typical of a human breeding pair.

Breeding pair, we say, because while humans are known for decadence and casual sexual encounters, _here_ , you can see Skywalker caress Amidala's abdomen. Our medical expert assures us that this is a common action of a father-human towards his pregnant partner!"

It went on for a while, showing the intimate moment again, and again, and again. It was the hottest scandal they'd picked up in years.

And then someone asked to buy the footage. And then another someone. And then another.


	2. Censorship

_**Censorship**_

Sly Moore was not having a good night.

Chancellor Palpatine had retired to his bed after a long, hard, frightening day. He had been abducted by Count Dooku and General Grievous, and rescued by the Jedi Heroes Skywalker and Kenobi.

It should have been a very _good_ day for Sly, with public sympathy very much on the side of the Chancellor, and Skywalker widely hailed as a hero. She should have been able to rest, content in the knowledge that the galaxy was rallying to the Chancellor's leadership.

Instead, all thanks to one little camera droid who had been in the wrong place at the wrong time, the story exploding throughout the galaxy was _not_ about the dreadful kidnap and daring-but-ultimately-successful rescue.

Instead, all thanks to that little camera droid, the galaxy was beginning to mutter about Anakin Skywalker and his secret wife, mistress, or "baby-mama", as one particularly galling chatter-bot had dubbed Padme Amidala.

Instead, all thanks to a _camera droid_ , Sly was still awake, long after midnight, sending cease and desist letters to every news and gossip channel in the galaxy.

The letters were fairly formulaic, stating that the clip being shown was subversive, harmful to the war effort, unpatriotic, dangerously Separatist… All the usual accusations she had at her disposal, since the Chancellor had been granted emergency powers.

Really, the news channels should know better. They knew the regulations that governed them during this war. Sly grimaced. They seemed to be taking shelter in the principle of numbers. Not even the Chancellor's office could shut down _every_ news station without public scrutiny.

In a way, it was her own fault. She'd been complacent. She hadn't even thought that the news could present anything other than the expected Skywalker-Saves-Palpatine narratives. She hadn't checked, hadn't scheduled any of her staff to check. Which had meant she was alone, late at night, without so much as a secretary to snap orders at, when she finally flicked on her holo-viewer just to check the news.

If she was totally honest, the story was fascinating and shocking. Skywalker was a Jedi! An unorthodox and rebellious Jedi, certainly, but Kenobi and Skywalker had become the enduring image of Jedi-ness for a galaxy at war. To find out that Skywalker had a secret mistress was shocking enough on its own. Add in the identity of that mistress, none other than Padme Amidala, the Senate's representative from the Chancellor's homeworld, and it defied belief. Sly had fallen into the trap of watching the footage twice, out of pure shock, before she'd snapped into action as the Chancellor's Administrative Aide.

She sighed to herself as she pressed send on another letter to another holo channel. She wasn't going to succeed, she knew that. The story had spread too far, too fast, and was too deliciously scandalous for her to completely suppress on her own. But she could at least do damage control, and make sure the worst of the discussions were killed before morning. She would set her staff to killing it completely when they arrived.


End file.
